Bring Us the (Talking)
Head of Osama bin Laden

By

Holman W. Jenkins Jr.

Updated Nov. 14, 2001 12:01 a.m. ET

On Oct. 10, the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, got the heads of five television networks on the phone and suggested they exhibit discretion when running future video releases from Osama bin Laden. They more than obliged: Americans have not seen several appearances by bin Laden or his associates that have been available to viewers in every other part of the world.

What else is the media protecting us from? Even as the country's major newspapers produced admirable, painstaking dissections of the...